Glen Finland - Next Stop: A Memoir

P RAISE FOR G LEN F INLAND AND

NEXT STOP

Glen Finlands remarkable, deeply affecting memoir makes you consider all over again the sheer wonder and force of a mothers love. Next Stop is a family album brought so vividly to life: moments of unbridled joy, setbacks, and heartbreaks, mysterious turns, and, ultimately, snapshots that reveal what we are all capable ofalone and together.

David Rowell, author of The Train of Small Mercies

A painful, rewarding, joyful, sad, beautiful book.

Robert Bausch, author of A Hole in the Earth and The Gypsy Man

In spare, elegant prose, Glen Finland tells a tale that every parent will relate toher sons story may be unique, but it speaks to all of us. I fell in love with every member of this imperfect, loving family and didnt want my time with them to end. If youve ever worried about what the future holds for the child you love, you need to read this book and know that youre not alone.

Claire LaZebnik, author of The Smart Oneand the Pretty One and coauthor of Overcoming Autism

When my children didnt want to go to sleep, they would always ask for the same kind of bedtime story about when you were little and got in trouble. This is the definition of a bestseller, and Next Stop, Glen Finlands book about her autistic son, David, is that kind of a readVery quickly, the book wraps its arms around you.

Phyllis Theroux, author of The Journal Keeper

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NEXT STOP

An Autistic Son Grows Up

GLEN FINLAND

THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

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Copyright 2012 by Glen Finland.

Readers Guide copyright 2013 by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

BERKLEY is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

The B design is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Berkley ISBN: 978-1-101-57700-4

The Library of Congress has catalogued the Amy Einhorn books hardcover edition as follows:

Finland, Glen.

Next stop: a son with autism grows up / Glen Finland.

p. cm.

1. Finland, Glen. 2. Parents of autistic childrenUnited Statesbiography.
3. Autistic childrenFamily relationships. 4. Mothers and sons. I. Title.

RJ506.A9 F56 2012

618.92858820092

PUBLISHING HISTORY

Amy Einhorn Books / G. P. Putnams Sons hardcover edition / March 2012

Berkley trade paperback edition / April 2013

Text design by Meighan Cavanaugh.

While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Penguin is committed to publishing works of quality and integrity.

In that spirit, we are proud to offer this book to our readers;

however, the story, the experiences, and the words

are the authors alone.

To Bruce, for reminding me to laugh

One of the best things in life is to have someone tell you a story.

Stories matter because they bring human faces out of the shadows. Faces that belong to the quiet ones among us like my son, David, a grown man who is tall, dark, and autistic. Although David is quite normal in appearancehandsome, evena profound unknowability surrounds him. In another era someone like him might have been hidden away from society, an unheard spirit, his story left untold. Now, I am only a mother with memories that are steadily gathering dust. But I can tell you stories.

First, its important to know that a story about autism isnt a story about a single child. It is a story about an entire family. Looking back over the last quarter century spent raising our three sons, I realize that my husband and I stumbled along in the dark, looking for answers, isolated by the sheer mystery of what autism is and what it can do to a family. So this is not a story about what we think we know but rather what we dont know. It is a story about a little boy who identifies wild birds high in the trees by their songs, a walled-off adolescent whose ancient grandmother teaches him to drive her car, and a reclusive teenager who runs at night through rain and snow in search of something only he can see. These are snapshots in time, grounded in a mothers perpetually tested hope. But what will happen when this boy becomes a man?

When I began this book, I thought it would be about letting go of David as he matured into an adult. But, hardwired to protect him, I had missed the deeper story. That one is about accepting parts of a young man I will never fully understand, then stepping out of his way to let him make his own choices. When the son who has never said I love you, Mom calls me to say hes spotted a red-winged blackbird swooping over the Potomac, and that a flood of water is roaring over the river rocks, his calling means, simply, he knows he is loved. Its an even exchange.

And yet this is still not the story I sat down to write. Watching a child with the deck stacked against him become a man has made me into an accidental noticer. This opened a door for many strangers to creep into these pages. They are easy to miss sitting alone in the theater, hovering uncertainly at the bottom of an escalator, or spotting birds along the edge of the river. Here among others are the legless woman, the upbeat busboy, and the naked man in his combat boots. Though their faces remain in the shadows, they have always been present among us, just unaccounted for.

Using both heart and mind to describe the evidence, I have dug hard to find the truth about life with David. Quite often it isnt pretty, but it is what is remembered. Still, I do not fear harsh judgment from the members of my unique tribe, the hundreds of thousands of families with autistic sons and daughtersthe first generation to have come of age in the Age of Autismwho know not to expect a fairy-tale ending.